seeou're going to wait to what sanctions do, i think he need to have some sort of a proposal. i would not sit around and say, you say it is for civilian purposes. i am calling that card. >> how worried should we be about pakistan's nuclear arsenal, its weapons? >> we should put pakistan toward the top of the list, in terms of our concerns. they live in a dangerous neighborhood. they have a lot of terrorists on their own territory. some, with considerable evidence, believe parts of their military and intelligence, not necessarily with approval of the government, of basically enabled and in some cases encouraged terrorists. certainly, the indians believed that.

you had the attack on mumbai yesterday afternoon. a terrorist could take up most of mumbai with a nuclear weapon. we've played a game of what would india do and how would pakistan respond. it is a very difficult situation. when we think about iran, i agree with bill and george on the analysis it is extremely dangerous. so is pakistan. when you look at proliferation, we saw what happened with one individual in pakistan, probably with the help of a lot of others, basically having a nuclear arms bazaar all over the world, enabling countries like libya to gain a number of components of nuclear weapons. this is a great concern. it is one of the toughest problems we face. when you think about it, the world has a stake. all of us believe in national

sovereignty and so forth. there was a recent article, and i do not know whether it is complete. it was in the american scientific magazine. it postulated with the help of supercomputers a hypothetical of 100 bombs going off between india and pakistan. it said based on a computer model, a couple hundred people -- a couple hundred million people killed very quickly. the consequences of the global cooling over the next five or six years would be 1 billion people to 2 billion people start around the world. do two nations have the right to do that in the name of sovereignty? i do not think so. we all have to think about this a lot more seriously than we have. in the case of iran, it is a difficult scenario. if they do get nuclear weapons, there will be several other countries in that part of the world, in my view, that will

have a very active quest for nuclear weapons. if we have a conflict, it has all sorts of implications. it would not be over and out. you would have to take up defensive missiles, if you were serious about it. you would have to take out nuclear sites. there are more than one or two. our business partner in this book reminded us yesterday afternoon you need to take out the electrical grid also. it would have huge implications for their nuclear program. since the have threatened to close the persian gulf, you would need to take of the navy and a lot of the air force. this is not a raid like we have seen before in iraq and syria. it is a big deal. it has a lot of consequences. we have to think through it. i believe there is some hope. the iranians are in a real economic squeeze now. first of all, they have a bad

economic system. second, the embargoes are having some effect. the valuation of their currency has gone down about 30% in the last six months. they are feeling the pain. unfortunately, a lot of innocent people suffer. that is something you are always concerned about, but the alternatives are pretty grim. in a war, there would be even more suffering. the embargo has to be tightened. we have to do everything we can to persuade china and russia. the europeans are assertive, talking about cutting off the import of iranian oil. all of that may have an effect. anything regarding iran these days, if there is a bright spot, it is a dark red spot. the dark bright spot is they contend over and over again, though we do not believe them and should not believe them, that they do not have a weapons program and are not going to

have a weapons program. they said it would be a sin to develop weapons. do i believe that? no. do i think that is important? yes. it is a face-saving way to come down if we can come up with some type of international enrichment centers that are under iaea cameras and control. that is the dark bright spot in a very difficult situation. >> secretary schulz? >> i wanted to add something on pakistan. bill and i, over the last six months, had 2 we will link the meetings, one with a group of former military and foreign minister types in india and pakistan, and then after that one with pakistani high officials and some high u.s. one. on the latter. -- one point on the latter.

there was a session with a couple of economists, one from pakistan. that was the only high point in the whole thing. the net of that discussion was that the pakistanis are forgoing tremendous economic opportunities by virtue of the tension that pervades the country, and the unease that pervades the country. if they could do something about it, but could have an explosive economic situation. i thought i would hold that up to people and say, "why don't you get real and pay attention to your best interests, and allow yourself to develop?" how much of an impact that made, i have no idea. but it was a dramatic moment. >> very dramatic. i would also say at that meeting -- the first meeting we had, i

met offline with the former pakistani defense minister and asked him why he would go to so much trouble to come to these meetings and discuss these issues. he said, "because i think we are heading for a nuclear war." not just terrorism, a nuclear war. he said, "i think it is likely somebody in pakistan is plucking, and mumbai as well." if that happens, the indian government this time will not show restraint. there will send military forces into pakistan to punish them. the pakistani army will be humiliated, defeated. then the pakistani military leaders will go to the president and say, "we can solve this problem by using nuclear weapons on the indian army." they have the theory that if they use nuclear weapons only within pakistan, the indians

will not respond to nuclear weapons. it is a crazy theory, but they believe it. we are not just talking about one nuclear bomb in a city, a terror bomb, but a nuclear war between two major countries in the world. this is what i learned from listening to a pakistani former defense minister, his fear there were heading to that nuclear war. that caught my attention very seriously. >> let us spend a few minutes talking about the threat of a nuclear 9/11. quite a few of the questions from the audience deal with the question of nuclear terrorism. to frame the discussion, i want to read an excerpt from a letter albert einstein wrote to franklin roosevelt in 1939. it was this letter which led to the establishment of the

manhattan project in the development of the first nuclear weapons by the united states. einstein wrote this letter when he became aware nuclear physics had reached a point where a weapon could be created of almost incomprehensible power. he wrote a letter to fdr. what is striking to me about it is that the threat that he describes in the letter is exactly one of the threats that the united states faces today in terms of nuclear terrorism. here we are, spanning many decades of the nuclear era, and we are facing the same threat today that albert einstein identified in 1939. here is what he said to president roosevelt. "a single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port, together with some of the surrounding territory."

senator, i know that the programs you and senator lugar put into place have played a major role in trying to secure vulnerable fissile materials around the world. >> that was a brilliant insight piece of legislation. >> senator, won't you talk a little bit about how you see the threat of nuclear terrorism? what exactly is the threat of nuclear terrorism? >> i consider it the most dangerous threat we have faced, because a nuclear terrorist group, if they got a bomb or the material to make a bomb -- some of them are suicidal, but they would not have a return address. our whole principle in the cold war was to deter a country knowing if they shot missiles at

us we have a return address and would suffer retaliation. terrorist groups do not have that. some of them would like nothing more than to basically cause a conflict even to escalate up between countries, based on perceived terrorist attack and attribution of a particular country. i think what you have here is the ingredients of a perfect storm. you have nuclear weapons usable material around the globe. our organization just did an index reading the 32 countries around the globe in about 18 different aspects on how they are securing their usable in nuclear materials. the important thing is keeping the material out of the hands of terrorists. they are not going to be able to enrich themselves. but if they get enrichment, they could make a bomb. you have got the material.

you have terrorists who would like to use it. you have technology we thought only a state could master. it is in pretty much intelligible form on the internet. and you have got a real growing possibility that that could happen. there is good news here. philip, you have already mentioned the lugar program. there was a huge effect, negotiating with three countries that were part of the former soviet union, to give up their nuclear weapon. that was in the 90's. not many people knew about it, but it was huge. bill ford was secretary of defense and did a wonderful job. we have done some things. we have a stronger iaea, though not nearly strong enough. we have u.n. resolution 1540,

which requires every nation to take care of their nuclear material. i always think in this grim subject we need to have a bit of encouragement. one of the things korea and her team helped negotiate, we hope with the help of the program -- koreans did not want to give up their weapons without getting an economic benefit. how to enrich uranium is worth money. you can blend it and make it nuclear fuel. the deal was made in the early 1990's -- we would work with russia to get weapons back from those countries. in russia, there would blend down the high-enriched uranium. we would by the low enriched uranium over 20 years. we are about 15 years into that program. right now, 20% of our electricity in america comes

from nuclear power. 50% of the material we burn in america's nuclear power plants comes from highly enriched uranium that was in the form of bombs aimed at us during the cold war. by definition, 10% of america's electricity represents the biblical phrase "swords turned into plowshares." there is encouragement. countries do have a mutual stake. the other encouraging thing is, and president obama deserves some credit -- he had a conference on nuclear material in washington, d.c. over 40 heads of state came. some of those countries are beginning to blend down and get rid of their highly enriched uranium. there is a follow-up conference next month in south korea. they are again going to get heads of state, not people below that level, to get together and talk about securing nuclear material.

there are things coming down the mountain, but we have made significant progress in the last 20 years. we are very alert to huge dangers. >> one of the things i realized while reaching the book was that during the cold war both the united states and soviet union had programs to spread highly enriched uranium around the world. president eisenhower called it atoms for peace. these were programs intended to give allies or prospective allies research reactors and the tool with which to operate them. it was part of the rivalry between the united states and soviet union. by the time the two nations were done distributing this highly enriched uranium, 10 tons of it had been distributed around the world to literally dozens of nations. we are now looking frantically

to try to roll up that highly enriched uranium and that its secured, and then blended down, as the senator just said. because it does not take a lot of bomb-grade highly enriched uranium to make a crude but powerful nuclear weapon. >> a number of the questions -- i am sorry not to read more specific questions, but i will in a minute read one. quite a few of them deal with the question of our present nuclear arsenal and the russian nuclear arsenal, and the whole question of nuclear deterrence, which is something these men have spent a lifetime thinking about working on and continue to work on today. the question -- one of the questions that kind of captors' this, i think, comes from the audience. it goes as follows. robert mcnamara said 100 nuclear

weapons is enough for you restaurants. do you agree? if so, why do we still have thousand suspects secretary perry, do you want to tackle that first? -- do we still have thousands? secretary, do you want to talk about a first? >> 100 deployed in a safe and secure manner -- it is not easy, but we could do that. it seems hard to come down from the absurd levels during the cold war, tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. we have gotten down to 1500 deployed nuclear weapons on each side. that is still grossly more than is needed. at the moment, as we speak, the administration is going through a study of whether they could make a dramatic cut in those nuclear weapons. i think there are ominous and unwelcome signs that somebody

leaked that study, the one of the options being considered is going down to 300 as a low- level. he leaked that because he thought he could provoke a negative response to that, which indeed happen. part of the negative response came from the fact it was suggested that going down to 300 was a boy to be done unilaterally, rather than through negotiations. i believe the study was set up to determine american negotiating position in the next round of cuts with the russians. i think the big reason we are not going down to 100 is that we want to go down arm in arm with the russians. i think they place a very high- value on nuclear weapons, more than we do, because that is all they have left. we believe we can defend our country with our conventional forces. the russians to they do not believe that.

they think their nuclear weapons, and lots of them, are what allow them to maintain their security. that is the practical problem from getting from several thousand down to several hundred. it is overcoming the russian resistance, due to the very real asymmetry between ourselves and russia in the security state. >> bill said something important. it is not simply the numbers. sometimes we pay too much attention to the numbers. we need to make nuclear weapons less relevant in our own plans, and so do the russians. we need to find ways to do that together. it is important that whatever number you have are secure. you do not want to put all your weapons in one pile and have a vault. you have to have survivability. we need to find broad concepts so neither russia nor the united states believes we are going to be subject to a decapitation

attack. we do not want anyone to have the feeling the have to use their weapons or that are going to lose them. it is a very unstable world when you do that. we also want to make sure, as the united states and russia come down, which we are, that the other countries do not go up. the other countries have to get involved in this next stage, in my opinion. i think we ought to concentrate on themes that go far beyond numbers. if you make nuclear weapons less relevant, on the u.s. and russia as well as other countries, a fear of a surprise to capitation type attack, you basically begin to have numbers that come down because the weapons are less relevant when people have less fears and apprehensions. i believe we have to have a concept of thinking about warning and decision time, at least in europe, not simply on

nuclear weapons, but also on conventional. fears and apprehensions drive a lot of forced postures. we need to get military discussions on a broad theme of increasing warning decision time across the spectrum, particularly in europe. >> i want to come back to that in a minute. a brief announcement for people who will be listening to this on the radio. you are listening to the commonwealth club of california radio program. our speakers today are former u.s. secretary of state george shultz, former u.s. secretary of defense william perry, and former senator sam nunn. they are discussing the threat of nuclear weapons. just to continue on deterrence, this was a theme in a lot of your questions. secretary shultz, when you went to reykjavik with ronald reagan

in 1986 to meet with gorbachev, at that time, the united states and soviet union together had a total of about 70,000 nuclear warheads, enough to destroy planet earth, essentially. today, the united states has 5000. the russians have more than that. when you were in reykjavik, of course, you talked about eliminating nuclear weapons altogether. a lot of people ask how can we risk giving up nuclear weapons. aren't they very important in preserving the peace? >> actually, they have not been as good a deterrent as they seemed to be cracked up to be. think in the cold war of the things that nuclear weapons did not deter. did not deter the soviets from going in and crushing hungary back in 1956. it did not deter them from

squashing the prague spring. it did not deter them from creating the conditions that led to the berlin airlift. it did not deter them from encouraging the korean war. it did not deter them from invading afghanistan. so an awful lot happened. why did nuclear not deter? because there was a kind of realization that it is very unlikely they will be used. that says to me deterrences a pretty good concept. -- is a pretty good concept. you want to create a situation where somebody does not attack you. it is better than having a war. we do not want nuclear to steal the concept, and it has done that. we need to get our brains out and think of other ways to deter. it is a very widely used concept. i remember when i became

secretary of the treasury, and the commissioner of internal revenue came to see me. he reported to me. he said, "we have the largest voluntary tax compliance system in the world puzzle i said, "it really?" we audit and we watch. in other words, there is deterrence. somebody may be watching. it is a widely used concept. i do not think we want to have the word nuclear steal it. >> senator nunn, if i may follow up briefly with you -- how you reassure people that if nuclear weapons are eliminated there will not be some kind of breakout country that will either secretly keep nuclear weapons or make them covertly, and then we will all wake up one day and instead of being the greatest nuclear power,

we will be threatened by a puny nuclear power with a handful of nuclear weapons? >> i think that is a very good question. a lot of people who thought to be in the game -- we are so far from the end game right now it is hard to visualize getting to the top of the mountain, where you would have no nuclear weapons. we really cannot see the top of the mountain. it is fogged in, and we have some avalanches coming dawn. we have to get to base camp. that will require countries going together to base camp. if we get to base camp, which would require a lot of steps beyond where we are now -- it would require dealing with north korea, with iran, with nuclear material all over the world. it would require a comprehensive test ban treaty ratification by all countries. the world will look different if we did all that. it is going to require the ability to verify.

verification is all-important. we have to have political will to enforce, which we will find out about with iran and north korea over the next couple of years. all of those things have to happen. if we get to base camp at some point -- it may not be in my lifetime. it will probably be in george's. if we get there, the world is going to look different. we are not talking about in this book -- we call it the partnership. there is an explanation of the concept and ways people that can understand -- ways people can understand. it is very short period but if we get to base camp -- it is very short. but if we get to base camp, we will be looking at the very different world. the way i visualize a world without nuclear weapons, it is not today, the subtracting a clear weapons. we have to change things.

we have to build trust with the russians. we have to have bridges built with a lot of military discussions with our friends in china, and have a lot of things happen. but these things are goals. the way i view where we are having is we have all sorts of steps we need to take now. we talked about securing nuclear material. there are a lot of steps to protect america today. we will not be able to take those steps of the corporation. you cannot do this unilaterally. the world knows we are having to the top of the mound. we are not saying we are the only ones who will have nuclear weapons. we are not saying the world should quit smoking while we chain smoke. that may have worked during the cold war. it does not work now. it has to be more than the united states. we have to move up the mountain with other countries. this is not a unilateral exercise. when we get to the end game, there will be a lot of things people have to consider.

we will always have the ability to reconstruct a clear weapons. you will have years or decades where you have a small number of nuclear weapons in some type of reserve. there are a lot of things we have to think about. it is not too soon to begin thinking about it. we are not going to get to the stage where we let one terrorist group get 10 nuclear weapons and blackmail the world. that is not in the cards. we will find ways to make absolutely not sure -- absolutely sure it cannot happen and the whole world would be united on that. >> i know secretary shultz wants to make a comment. here is a fact about senator nunn i am sure none of you know. he led his high school basketball team to the state championship in georgia. he was a point guard. he scored 28 points in that champion again -- championship game. [applause] >> his real name is sam lin.

[laughter] >> i was not smart enough to go to harvard, so -- but that was back in the era when you could be short and slow, and i was both. >> secretary shultz, who was a predictor football player at princeton before he -- who was a pretty fair football player at princeton. >> i want to emphasize the importance of the interaction between a vision of a world free from nuclear weapons and the steps you need to take to get there. because having the vision is really important. it encourages people to say, "how can we possibly get there? what are the things we have to do?" then you start identifying things that are doable that you need to do. as you identify them, gradually that gives the vision and a greater sense of reality. there is an interactive process.

without the vision, i do not think he would get the attention to the steps that even we are getting today. >> here is an interesting question. there are many interesting questions here. i wish we could do justice to all of them. i think this one opens a door to a conversation about some of the other issues that concern this gentleman today in terms of nuclear threats. this is a question from the audience. fukushima shows that complex systems can fail in unexpected ways. have we had any close calls, i assume on nuclear weapons issues, and can you discuss any of them? i think this is a subject dear to the heart of both secretary perry and senator nunn. >> we have had quite a few close calls during the cold war. some of them were close calls where the weapons themselves

were the issue. we used to carry nuclear bombs around in bombers that flu patrols. -- flew patrols. more than once, bombers crashed with nuclear bombs in them. whenever had destination, but that was risky business -- we never had a detonation, but that was risky business. we also had false alarms, one of which i was personally familiar with. i would get a call at night showing that the computer said there were 200 missiles on the way from the soviet union to the united states. this really gets your attention. [laughter] living through a few false alarms like that makes you a true believer on the real danger. to me, nuclear weapon -- the danger of nuclear weapons was never an academic consideration.

i lived with it. it was very real. today, those dangers are reduced, but new dangers are developing. the danger of nuclear terrorism is probably number one on the list today. >> we have had several close calls that i know about. bill knows about more than i do. you wonder what scenario is it that would require the u.s. or russia to have 1500 to 2000 warheads on what amounts to two or three minutes alert. what is it today, 20 years after the end of the cold war, that prevents us from being able to assure the president of the united states and the president of russia, and i would include other countries, that they would have at least two hours to make up their mind whether to pull the trigger or give the order to pull the trigger to blow up a great portion of god's universe.

we should not be in that posture. to those who say these are tough problems, you know, one of the things you realize when you get into these discussions -- no matter how dangerous the status quo is, if you have been living with it a long time, anything that talks about changing it looks to some people that it may be creating a difficult. we have to think through these things. are we going to be in this forever? are a week on a nuclear tiger we can never dismount without being eaten alive? i do not think so. i think mankind is not bound to that fate. one example i heard about from a russian friend was back in belgrade. this was not close to a nuclear war, but it shows you why warning time is important. we were bombing belgrade and the russians were furious about it. my friend happened to be standing at a cocktail party next to a very high-level russian who was present at that

stage, president yeltsin. obviously, he it was reported to occasionally have a few libations. to say the least. his generals came in and told him americans were bombing belgrade, and he basically told the general to go on full nuclear alert. when you go on full nuclear alert, that does not mean you are going to fire your weapons. but it means everybody in the world as cordray focused on that. the united states would know. we would go on alert. you get a flock of geese on the radar screen and who knows what will happen? those are not the conditions you want. we can do better than that. we certainly do not want to get down to a situation where -- we need to increase the warning time. but as hypothetically say it is 30 minutes now. we need to increase that to an hour. we need to do it to the

russians. we need to have military- military discussions about how to give our presidents more warning and decision time. we ought to get to 2 hours on both sides. then 12 hours. then a week or a month. at some point, nuclear-weapons become less relevant. is it easy? know. will it take a lot of discussions? yes. will it take imaginative thoughts? yes. will it take cooperation? yes. can it be done unilaterally? no. it has to be done together. our grandchildren should not be mounted on this nuclear tiger 40 years from now, or even 10 years from now. >> secretary shultz? >> we are dealing with a peculiar kind of risk, whether we are talking about nuclear power plants or nuclear weapons. of course, a weapon presents much more catastrophic problems.

but it is a peculiar kind of risk, because it says here is a risk with a very, very low probability of occurrence, but if it occurs, the consequences are horrendous. how you handle risks like that experts i think you must impose rigid risks like that? i think you must impose the highest standards of safety. that sounds easy, but it is not. there are pressures all the time. i am just surmising from what i have heard about, particularly in the early stages of our weapons program. people wanted to get their weapons out. there was a tendency to cut corners. that is a natural thing. but when you have such high- consequence problems, it is not a thing to do. in the case of nuclear power plants, obviously, people try to

keep costs under control. save the cost you something. there is tension there. -- safety costs you something. but you have to go with safety. >> the russian general who was told to go on alert ignored it. fortunately, we have general is that are smarter than some of our civilian leadership. >> the general that called me on the 200 missiles on the way had already decided, when he called me, this was a false alarm. he had made the judgment. we do not have a system which is automatic. it has human intervention and human judgment. in all the cases i knew where there was a false alarm, the human being made the right judgment. that is the kind of threat we are hanging on -- a human judgment. >> that is why you do not want

such short decision time, where things become automatic. there was a book that talked about the doomsday machine. it was basically positing a situation which he believed was real, or you got down to the last few minutes, and human beings were left out of the equation. at that stage, the machines took over. if that is accurate, we want to move away from it and not ever let it get to that point. >> let us spend a few minutes talking about the initiative these men have launched. if you follow nuclear weapons issues, you know that after reykjavik, in which president reagan and soviet leader gorbachev talked about eliminating nuclear weapons, but receded. it did not really come back into much discussion until the op-ed piece that these three men and

henry kissinger wrote that appeared in "the wall street journal" in 2007. coming from men with the history these gentlemen have, to republicans and two democrats, an unusual bipartisan agreement, it puts us back into discussion. it gave it a credibility it had previously not had, at least not for many years. president obama has essentially made the nuclear agenda of these gentlemen the nuclear agenda of the obama administration. i am interested to know, and i think people here pointed out -- >> during the campaign, both senator obama, the candidate, and senator mccain, the candidate, endorsed our issues, so it was not an issue in the campaign. to the extent we can, we would

like to keep it that way. >> people would like to know what you all plan to do in the coming months to keep your initiative moving. secondly, what can people like those who have come up this evening to hear about this and think about it -- what can they do to deal with these issues and help to reduce the threats that we face? let me start this with senator nunn. >> the question of what the public can do -- i think we have a film out. you can get them free on our website. the last, best chance is a hypothetical film about nuclear terrorism. "the nuclear tipping point" is one where all of us discussed the issues with henry kissinger. those are available on the nt i.org website. the public needs to get familiar with these issues, as hard as it

is to think about. talk to your congressmen and senators about them. when arms control agreements come up, usually we have only a small number of people waiting in. the public needs to weigh in on these things, because they are very important. in terms of briefly what our nuclear threat initiative organization will do, and others are here from the organization -- we have set up an organization in vienna called world institute of nuclear security. it is a non-governmental organization. we have over 500 members. it is best practices, peer review, on how to handle nuclear material. any entity handling nuclear material can join our organization. we have talked about the fuel back. warren buffett put up $50 million, matched by the world. it is being set up as a backup fuel supply so countries do not feel the need to go into

enrichment. the more enrichment, the more problems we have. i have just been involved in a program sponsored by the carnegie endowment. the former foreign minister of russia and former german ambassador to the u.s. -- will work with europeans car russians, and the united states about a number of issues dealing with the russians in ways that will make europe a more peaceful, less militarized community. we dealt with ballistic missile defense, which is enormously important. we can cooperate with the russians. beginning the corporation makes a huge difference in what happens to offensive forces. you cannot separate offense and defense anymore than you can repeal the law of gravity. we have discussed at length in this group and endorsed the warning and decision time concept, not simply for strategic weapons, but for traditional and tactical

battlefield weapons. nato expansion falling face down causes the russians all sorts of an side is. but for the europeans and east europeans, the elephant in the room is the tactical nuclear weapons by russia, and the posture of the nuclear weapons located close to their border. there is a lot to discuss if we want to move in the right direction. those are just a few of the things we are involved in. they are all part of the steps we outlined in the first "wall street journal" article. >> secretary schulz? >> i think there are three categories of things we can all work on. number one is developing ideas about the subject that are going to be potentially useful, to think them through, to publish them, to put them out there, and in the process identify people who are really expert and are willing to pitch in and help.

you offer these up to the government, who have to take the actions in the end. that is something we have been doing. you mentioned deterrence. we developed a lot of ideas about that subject. the second thing that you can do, and all three of us take part in it -- you can do a certain amount of what is called track two. we mentioned earlier the india- pakistan conference we had in the pakistan conference we had. we are all involved in a very little group that at one. had a lot of back and forth with the russians and the chinese. sometimes, people who were in government know something about how it works and have access to people in the government. but we can have a little more relaxed, open discussion than if you are in the government and have to watch every word you say. so we can do things of that

kind. third, we can take on activities that try to spread consciousness of the problem, and support for doing something constructive about it. for example, we had inquiries from the evangelical community. a group came to hoover and stanford. bill and i and others met with them. we presented our ideas. it had some impact on the evangelical community. for example, they provided two letters toward the end of the last election campaign. one was to be presented to whoever warren, and the letters were identical. it said, "some of us supported you and some of us supported the other guy, but if you get behind this, we will all support you." the catholic missions -- there was a bishop that recently made

a speech on behalf of the holy see. he laid out the catholic teaching on this very powerful. we want to work with people like that and provide them with information, and encourage some kind of consciousness to try to get into the political atmosphere. this is something you really have to pay attention to and do something about. you talk to the church people. bill swing up -- a lot of you know bill, here in san francisco. he has this united religion initiative, millions of people all over the world. the nuclear project is one of his project. make that kind of an effort. >> some of you here may have noticed that the three partners here are somewhat beyond the conventional age of retirement. you may be asking yourself, "how are you going to keep the

momentum going on this? how are you going to pass the baton to others? and who are you going to pass it to?" we have tonight in this audience gloria duffy and others. not in this audience, people in the administration, mike mcfall, all of whom represent the next generation coming along. beyond that, i teach a class every year at stanford. about 300 students in the class. each year, eight or 10 of those come up at the end of the year and say, "i am going to get into this field." we do everything we can to bring them along. we have three generations represented here. some are on the stage. some are in the audience. in the students of stanford and other universities are being inspired. we have 2 we would generations waiting to pick up the baton.

-- we have two generations waiting to pick up the baton. >> one day when we were on our way out to the airport in berlin, i was driving in a limousine with secretary shultz and his wife, charlotte. she turned to him and she said, "george, when are you going to get some young people to work on this purpose?" to which secretary shultz said, "we have madeleine albright and colin powell." [laughter] at any rate, let me bring this evening to a close. i think it is appropriate to read something at the very end here that involve secretary perry. >> is this a book for sale? and will you sign copies of it if they buy one?

>> yes and yes. i am describing and the very end hear secretary perry, who teaches the class at stanford, as he describes. as he and is one of the classes, i was auditing the scores a couple of years ago when -- auditing this course a couple of years ago while researching the book. he said, "my generation was responsible for building up this fearful nuclear arsenal, and my generation has now started the task of dismantling it. but we will not be able to finish this task, so we will have to pass the baton on to your generation." finally, i guess i have the gavel from gloria. i will bring the meeting to an end. i am sorry we have run out of

time for further questions. thank you all for the really wonderful question to send here. i am sorry i could not cite more of them. i tried to consolidate themes in a way we could bring these issues into the discussion. thanks to secretary shultz and perry and senator nunn. i also want to thank the audience, as well as the radio and television audience. this program has been held in association with plowshares' fund and stanford university's center for international security, and the institute for international studies. i want to remind our audience -- this is my favorite line of the evening -- that copies of "the partnership" are on sale in the back of the room, and i will be pleased to sign them immediately following the program. this meeting of the commonwealth club of california, the place

where you are in the know, is adjourned. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> next, republican presidential candidate mitt romney at a town hall meeting in dayton, ohio. then a preview of the presidential primary vote in the state. after that, a presidential

address. >> buck mckeon, chairman of the armed services committee, discusses the defense cuts planned by the obama administration, efforts to shift the role in afghanistan, and the nuclear plant in iran. >> even a person who is a senator, even a person who is president of the united states, faces a predicament when they talk about race. they face the fact that there are an appreciable number of americans who are racially prejudiced. they face the fact that a much larger portion of the american populace wants to deny that reality even now. >> the former law clerk to justice thurgood marshall on

racism, politics, and the obama administration. the rhodes scholar is the author of five books. he will answer questions for three hours, live on "in depth." republican presidential candidate mitt romney continues to campaign in ohio this weekend. it is one of 10 states holding contests on super tuesday. next, the former massachusetts governor takes part in a town hall meeting in dayton. ♪ ♪

>> wow. what a turnout. i have a question for this crowd. do you believe we cannot afford another four years of barack obama? [applause] that must mean we will do everything in our power over the next three days to make sure mitt romney wins ohio and in the fall beats barack obama. are we going to do it? [applause] three more days and we are. it is great to be here. the mayor is doing a great job as a champion for this area. we also happen states senator chris widener here. pretty good team, do you not

think? [applause] and the big guy behind me here, nick mangold, centerville, ohio. you can probably tell from looking at him he plays a sport. can you guess which one it is? a great buckeye star and now playing in some place called new york. we have to get him back to ohio, folks. thank you for being here, nick. ladies and gentleman, some of you know i have worked for a couple of presidents. i have seen the kind of leadership we need in the oval office. here in ohio, i have seen the kind of leadership we need to turn things around to get this economy going again, do we not? [applause] guess what -- there is somebody running for president who has that kind of leadership, who knows how to get things done, who focuses on solutions, who

can turn this economy around because he goes up to create jobs, and that is mitt romney. [applause] he has got the midas touch. everything he has done he has done superbly. during the olympics, we had just gone through 9/11. we needed a shot in the arm. he took over the olympics when it was headed toward insolvency, turned it around, and made us proud americans. as the governor of the state of massachusetts, he inherited a budget that was $3 billion in deficit. when he left office, they had a $2 billion surplus. how about that? [applause]

he cut taxes more than 10 times in the process to bring back jobs. that is a pretty good lesson for washington, d.c., is it not? [applause] we are fortunate to have somebody running for president as a republican who can and will beat president barack obama in the fall. ladies and gentlemen, we need is leadership. we need to win this race. once again, are we going to do everything in our power over the next three days to make sure mitt romney wins ohio? [applause] the heart of it all, the buckeye state. i am going to ask you to welcome centerville native who also happens to be a great supporter of mitt romney. >> i want to thank you all for coming out. an amazing crowd here. i was very honored to have the opportunity to come.

i am a big fan of mitt and what he will do for us as the next president of the united states. the biggest thing for me as a proud son of ohio is to welcome him and give them the support he needs. the next president of the united states, mitt romney. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. please. thank you. thank you. thank you. you know, -- thank you. thank you so much. if i was as big and strong as nick, this race would be over.

quite a champion of the ohio state university. [applause] i am excited by the response by the number of people here by your enthusiasm and passion. before i offer my remarks, i want to think about those that are hurting today. with tornadoes that have touched down across this great land, we have had people lose everything they own. we have had people lose their lives and their loved ones. so in respect for those who have great sorrow today, i wonder if we might take a moment to collect our thoughts, a moment of silence, and offer a word of prayer in our own ways to ask our father in heaven to bless those that are troubled and sorrowful today.

thank you so much. i am it proud to be in this place. i do not know if i can pronounced it right. [unintelligible] is the owner and operator. did i get close enough? the great thrill i have of going around the country meeting americans who have done extraordinary and ordinary things. it makes you come away with a greater confidence in the future of this country. he came to this country as a young man. he had been in india. he made a living in india -- at the end of the school year he would buy books from students and sell them to new students and make a nice profit. the decided he wanted to get a degree. he got an advanced degree. if you go to an institution of

higher learning somewhere around the world, you have a skill, know how, talent -- staple a green card to the diploma and have them come to the usa. we want those brains to come here. he was one of those brains. he came here and has begun businesses. an entrepreneur. an innovator. he started a software business that makes parts for aerospace. automotive parts. he has made hundreds of jobs possible. this is something about america that is so unusual and unique. he did not have the government tell him to come here. he did not have the government tell him where to build. he did not go to washington and say can i please have permission to build this enterprise? he came here on his own because this is the land of opportunity. people all over the world seeking opportunity come here and those that are successful do not make as poor. -- make us poorer.

they make us better off. we celebrate people who come here for freedom and opportunity. [applause] i was in michigan a couple of days ago. you have a border security problem here in ohio. [laughter] you let me in from that state. i met bill. bill is a doctor. he said all of the government interaction is troublesome. he and his dad started a business of his own. they make casters. not the fishing rod casters, the wheels that help you move heavy things around. he employs dozens of people making casters. another guy named norm burns -- norm does not have an advanced degree, but he is an engineer with over 100 patents to his name.

he makes electrical systems and employs people. a marvelous country we live in. i just love the american spirit. when the founders created this country, they made a choice that has made all the difference. they said that we as individuals in this land were given our rights not by government, but by god. [applause] among those rights were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. that freedom and the ability to pursue happiness as we choose, our ancestors came here seeking opportunity. at they became successful, they built the strongest nation in the history of the earth. i love the fact we can pursue opportunity as we choose and

pursue happiness as we dream rather as read the obama or his friends tell us. we have freedom in this country to make it strong. [applause] sometimes i do not think the president understand the power of america's economy and what makes it work. i'd think it helps to have actually been in the economy, to have had a job in the private sector. [applause] you see, politicians make a lot of promises, but they do not know what it takes to deliver. this president when he was running far office said he would cut the deficit in half. he has doubled it. he has raised taxes on middle income families if you consider obamacare. he also told the american people that if we let him borrow $787 billion for his so-called

stimulus, he would keep unemployment below 8%. it has not been below 8% since. this is a president who is out of ideas, excuses, and in 2012, we will make sure he is out of office. [applause] you guys are great. this is like an ohio state football game. this is amazing. let me tell you -- in this election, we are going to have a choice as to the direction of america.

we have a president who is comfortable with a trillion dollar deficits even as europe is suffering near calamity because of their deficit, he is comfortable adding up trillion upon trillion. if i am president of the united states, i will cut programs, i will return programs to states, and i will finally balance our budgets. [applause] i happen to think these deficits are dangerous, that for the economy, i also think they are immoral. i think it is wrong for my generation year after year to keep benefits upon ourselves and pass on obligations to the next generation. i take it as a moral responsibility to balance our budget and get america strong again. [applause]

there are some other differences. this is a president who said he was going to help us get jobs. of course, he reminds us all the time that he did not cause the recession, he inherited it. he does not want to remind us that he also inherited a democrat house and a democrat senate and he was free to do whatever he wanted. he put in place this plan, and three years later, we are still suffering. people in ohio's still suffering. he went on the "today show" and said if i cannot turn around the economy in three years, i will be looking at a one-term proposition. we are here to collect. [applause] you just try and think of something he has done that helped create jobs, that made it more likely for small businesses to open their doors.

the number of start-ups per year in america has dropped by 100,000 with this president. did obamacare create more jobs? no. did putting in place dodd-frank make it easier for small businesses to obtain loans. no. did small business people think about hiring after the boeing decision? no. the list goes on and on. his actions make it harder for this economy to get going. what i will do if i am president is to take the actions i have seen in my private sector life -- 25 years in business. i want to take those lessons to make america the most attractive place in the world for jobs, to make it such that innovators want to come here, that people all over the world invest here, upstart companies here, hire people here. how do you do that? you make sure regulations are up-to-date, modern, and minimized.

you make sure we take advantage of our energy resources. use our coal and gas. [applause] and, by the way, you make sure that you pass the easiest test all -- you say yes to the keystone pipeline from canada. [applause] you also want to have tax policies that encourage small and big businesses to grow and invest. let me make mention of a couple of things. this president should understand that most americans work in businesses that are taxed not as corporations, but as individuals. they call them flow-through businesses where there is not a

corporate level tax. it goes right to the individual. his plan is to raise the taxes from 35% on those entities to 40%. if he does back, he will kill jobs. my plan is to cut taxes across the board by 20% and get more jobs in america. [applause] when it comes to jobs, we also have to recognize that trade is a good thing. my guess is you are selling some of your products are around the world. you should never ask someone a question unless you know the answer, but i took a chance there. that is true for a number of reasons -- the quality of our workmanship, engineering, talent, design, materials -- and come together to have america as the most productive of the major economies in the world. that term "productive"-- what does that mean? how much does the average american produced in goods and

services? they add that up and divide the total production in our economy by the total population and say here is the productivity of american's work force. the compare that with other nations and we are number one. it is good for us to be able to sell to other places because we are so productive. we want to sell these things elsewhere. over the last three years, china and the european nations have figured that out. they have established 44 different trade agreements, trying to increase their trade. guess how many agreements this provision has put in place? zero. that has to change. something else has to change. if when we trade to other people, some will cheat. you have to stop them from cheating. the president said he would take china to the mat. instead he let them walk all over us. the right course is to make sure that china can no longer still intellectual property, can no longer manipulate their

currency. -- and can no longer hack into our computers. they have to finally play by the rules and make sure china is taught a lesson. [applause] let me mention something else about a difference between where we are headed under this president as compared to where we would head at i were president. that relates to our military and our capacity to defend ourself. -- ourselves. this is a president comfortable with the idea of cutting $500 billion out of a decade-long military commitment. he is comfortable with reducing our number of ships, are purchases of aircraft, reducing our active duty personnel, and reducing our commitment to our veterans by cutting the benefits they receive under tri- care. by the way, the state of our

military -- yeah. boo. [laughter] the state of our military -- let me summarize. we have fewer ships in our navy than anytime since 1917. we have a pure and older aircraft in our air force fleet than anytime since 1947 when it was formed. of course, you know how stressed our armed services personnel were in the conflicts in iraq and afghanistan, yet he was to cut those things. a strong military is the best ally peace ever had and we should keep a strong and vital american military. [applause] and so rather -- [applause]

and so rather than cut our shipbuilding from the current level of 9 per year, and will raise it to 15. i will increase the productivity of f-35s. i will add 100,000 troops to our active duty personnel and i will give our veterans the care they deserve. [applause] what an honor it is to be here with you. my goal if i become president is pretty straightforward. i want more jobs for the people of ohio, for the people of america. for me, talking about jobs is not something academic. it is not something i have debated in a congressional committee. it is something i have done. i have been in business. i know what it is like to worry about meeting payroll.

i have looked at the prospect of bankruptcy. having been in business, i know what it takes to make business successful. i want to use that experience to help get america working again. we have good people running office, but these other guys and spent their lives in government. nothing wrong with that, but right now with our economy in distress, with jobs so badly needed, we need a president who knows the economy to fix the economy. [applause] now i am told you get a chance to ask me some questions. that is always the most exciting part. we are going to take a moment and let you raise a question or two. right here in the front row. ok. i walk into a microphone. >> you mentioned you're going to repeal obamacare when you

got into office. i just heard you mention dodd- frank. i did not hear you mention anything about a sarbanes not sleep. sarbanes-oxley. would you plan to repeal those two major -- which are really choking our ability to innovate and create jobs and so forth? [applause] >> yes. let me tell you -- one of the challenges we have is, again, we have in washington people who spend their lives in washington and do not understand when they write a piece of legislation what impact that will have in the private sector. how many lives will be affected by it? i do not think the president understands that the pieces of legislation he has put in place has made it harder for our economy to recover. by the way, that little phrase -- harder for the economy to recover -- let's translate that. it means millions of people out

of work. it means people suffering. i go across the country -- i meet entrepreneurs who are successful building enterprises, i meet men and women who are having a hard time, who cannot find work. i was with one gentleman who was over 70. he said i thought i would be retired by now but i cannot afford to give in this economy. a lot of college kids -- four years ago when i ran for office, i would go to universities and ask kids what was the biggest question in the mines. it was always about iraq back then. today it is about jobs. they wonder if i can find a job when they get out. soldiers coming home - number one question -- will i find work when i come home? these legislative monsters that have been created kill jobs. anytime someone says they have a 2000 page bill, that automatically ought to send

some red flags. can we find a way to get a bill may be 10, 20, or 30 pages that we can concentrate on, fix it, and make it work on the economy? [applause] by the way, when i get rid of obamacare, when i get rid of dodd-frank, it does not mean i want to get rid of lots. -- laws. i want to make sure it is modern, updated, goes after the bad guys, but also encourages the good guys. i was with a banker i did do york. he said we have hundreds of lawyers working on understanding, implementing dodd-frank. guess how many community banks have hundreds of lawyers? none of them. they struggle along. they pull back from making loans. after dodd-frank, bigger banks

are getting bigger, smaller banks are pulling back. i understand business well enough that i will look at this legislation, i will send back built will kill jobs. by the way -- obama era regulations -- i will put an end to all of those that kill jobs. thank you. [applause] >> governor, i am one of over 20,000 retirees who have lost our health care, our life insurance, and locked up to 30% of our pensions. i think you are well aware of this issue. we got tied into the expedited bankruptcy of general motors and the auto bailout in washington, which you know picked losers and winners in the process using our tax dollars and we were chosen as losers. our union counterparts were chosen as winners. my question is are the other

20,000 that cannot be here today, if you are elected president, what can you do to prevent this from happening in the future and what can you do to help us get our pensions restored? [applause] >> thank you. it is known as crony capitalism where politicians in power decide to use their power to take care of their friends and they sort of brushed aside the law. we have in this country provisions for bankruptcy so that when enterprises get over their heads, whether there is a huge bleeding going on, you can stanch the bleeding, get them on their feet, and start them up again. in those provisions which provide for the various people who had to take a severe hair cut to make sure what happens is fair. what happened in this case is the president decided, a first

of all, to send money to the auto companies without first stopping the bleeding. he should have let them go to manage bankruptcy first, not just putting money in their purse. [applause] secondly, they finally went to the managed bankruptcy process, which they needed to do, then they get help coming out of bankruptcy. that was needed, too. he put his hands on the scales of justice in the bankruptcy process. instead of the law being followed, certain favorites were given special deals. those who work are uaw were given special deals. that is simply wrong. you have to follow the law. we are a nation of laws. markets only work, people were only invest their life savings, the only take risks if they believe the law is going to be followed. contract, bankruptcy, and other laws -- i will follow the law. i will make sure this never happens again.

thank you. [applause] >> when you are president -- [applause] -- how will you approach appealing the ever growing great divide in congress so your wonderful plan can come to fruition? >> it has to be less trading as i listen to the man from delphi and to talk about his pension. this is real life. this is a family affected by government. you want to see government work together because of you are a human being. you have kids. how many grandkids do you have? yes. europe grandkids. you worry about their future. we are human beings. it is not too much to ask -- we expect washington to try to solve problems, make things

better, not to get in the way, but to open up america so that american people can have a brighter future. when they cannot get the job done, when they cannot seem somehow to get out of our way, we ask why that is. it is hard for a lot of us to understand. i did not spend my life in politics. i spent my life in business. if we have problems, we found a way to solve the problems. there were no options. people asked is it harder to work in business or government? the answer is in business. in business if you make a mistake, you go out of business. you'll lose your job. government keeps on raising your taxes, blaming the other party, borrowing money. we have people who can get the job done. i had the blessing of being elected in a state where my legislature was 85% democrat. it did not take a rocket scientist or a brilliant engineer for me to figure out that to get anything done i had

to work with the opposition party. we disagreed on almost every issue, but we respected each other. from time to time we could find common ground. we agreed to cut taxes time and again. we read balanced the budget. we agreed not to expand our borrowing. we agreed to have english immersion in our schools. the decisions of our predecessors -- we can work together. i began early on in my administration -- i said i will not attack the speaker of the house and the senate, that on a personal basis. i will show respect for them. halfway to my term i published a brochure which describe the great accomplishments in my administration. this was a campaign kind of thing. i paid for it, so my picture is on the cover, all right? so is the picture of the senate president and the speaker of

the house. we are together in these pictures. you open it up and it talks about our accomplishments together. you have to work with people. this is a critical time for america. i care about america. i am not going to washington because it is the next step in my political career. i do not have the political career. i want my kids and grandkids to live in a nation with prosperity and security. [applause] >> i have two questions. our country is literally bleeding money. -- due to bad decisions law makers have made. do you support decisions -- the blood loss is rapidly increasing.

the patient is going to die soon if the doctors did not stop arguing and act soon. what can we do to jump-start congress to get their heads out of the sand and actually stand up and be leaders and take real action? >> thank you good question. we have got some of those leaders here who are battling in congress and the senate. what i am going to do is send nick there to bang some heads. [laughter] i think a president typically has about 100 days or so to really get things going and to change the course of the country. with regards to the fact that we are bleeding -- we are spending $1 trillion more than we take in every year. we have got to change that right away. i cannot wait for my second term to start thinking about that. i have to get that started right away. from the very beginning, we are

going to go through every single line of the federal budget and i am to look at the program and say at this program is so critical that we should borrow money from china to pay for it and if it does not pass that test, i will get rid of that. i will ask you to sacrifice by agreeing not to be too upset when i cut out some programs. for instance, i'd like pbs. i like big bird and bert and ernie, my grandkids to watch, but i do not think we should be borrowing money so our kids do not have to watch advertising. big bird will have to see some corn flakes from time to time under my administration. [applause] we are going to cut programs. i am also going to take programs like medicare -- excuse me, medicaid, which is a health care program for the poor -- food stamps, housing vouchers, training programs -- there are 47 different government work force training programs in washington.

think of all the bureaucracy. i am going to take the money from them, send it to ohio and each state and say you run the programs as you think is best and grow them with inflation. [applause] i will find those democrats who recognize how critical this is -- both democrats and those republicans -- and we will make sure we get america back on track. that will lead us to finally have a balanced budget and in short our kids a nation that is prosperous and free. thank you. [applause] >> my husband and i currently have a daughter serving with the 82nd airborne in afghanistan. [applause] >> thank you. >> i appreciate the vision you have for our military as a mother. this is our second deployment.

her first deployment, she never once said i want to come home. this deployment has been extremely hard, not only for her, but for my husband and i. every e-mail, every time we skype, i hear i want to come now. we have no definition of a mission brigid she is a first lieutenant. there is nothing for us to do here. what would your plan be to expedite getting our troops home now and possibly bringing them in and putting them on our border to secure them for the future? [applause] >> thank you. as you can hear from the response of people in this room, we appreciate the sacrifices she is making and that your family is making for the greatest nation on earth. thank you. thank you.